Woody Paige

Paige: All we are saying is give Tebow a chance

One Broncos fan makes her opinion known Sunday in "enemy" territory.
Alas, Broncos rookie quarterback Tim Tebow did not enter the game against the Cardinals. Meanwhile, starter
Kyle Orton suffered through one of his roughest games in the 43-13 Denver loss.
(John Leyba, The Denver Post)

GLENDALE, Ariz. — As the rest of the beaten, battered and busted Broncos, with bowed heads and slumped bodies, walked slowly through the bowels of the stadium, one player sprinted down the hall and turned the corner into the locker room.

Tim Tebow's run was the Broncos' longest and best of the Broncos' longest and second-worst day of the season.

It also was Tebow's only rush of the game. He threw a few passes . . . on the sideline late in the third quarter after Kyle Orton injured his ribs.

But, yet again, Tebow didn't start, didn't play, didn't even get a sweat stain on the most popular-selling jersey in the NFL.

For the second time in three weeks, the Broncos were humiliated by a rookie quarterback. But the Broncos' rookie quarterback didn't draw a business breath.

When I asked him about not being given a chance to play in another routine blowout by the opposition, the always politically correct Tebow uttered his favorite line: "I'm competitive."

Then I asked how he would feel if he doesn't play in the remaining three games.

Get ready for some serious controversy.

"It would be a lost opportunity," Tebow said.

A lost opportunity for him? For the Broncos? For interim coach Eric Studesville? For the multitude of Broncos' and Tebow fans? For his detractors? For Pat Bowlen?

A lost opportunity forever?

A couple of days after Josh McDaniels was fired, Tebow politely requested a meeting with Broncos COO Joe Ellis and wanted to know if he would be "out" too.

Tebow: The former Heisman Trophy winner, a two-time national championship quarterback, a Broncos' first-round draft choice this year, a young man who is experiencing the worst record on a team he has been a member of since he began playing football, one of the most heralded players in NCAA football history who barely has played this year.

Tebow: A frustrated scrub for the badly broken Broncos. His feelings show, except when he talks after the game about new Florida coach Will Muschamp — "He's great" — and the Heisman Trophy ceremonies, where he was a finalist the past three years and which he saw "pieces of on TV between team meetings" on Saturday night.

Heisman honoree Cam Newton, who was Tebow's backup at one time with the Gators, may get that found opportunity in pro football before Tebow does.

In the conversation with Ellis, Tebow wondered aloud about his future with the Broncos — considering that McDaniels had swapped a fistful of draft choices to pick the quarterback. Tebow was told not to worry, to be patient.

Obviously, he does worry and he is patient. Could he be one-and-one in Denver?

Studesville is only nervous about his own future. He doesn't have to fret. With the Broncos' poor, pathetic, pitiful performance against another dreg of football society, the head coach is totally temporary.

When asked if there will be a quarterback change for the next game — against the Raiders (who might put up 100 points in the rematch) — Studesville was not forthcoming. "We are going to look at everything."

I asked if he contemplated inserting Tebow against the Cardinals, especially after Orton had stunk up the joint, then got hurt. "No. Orton was dinged, but a lot of guys were dinged. That's part of football when you're playing a physical football game like this. He rebounded from it, and Kyle came back in. We went in that direction."

I pressed him, sort of, on the issue, and Studesville became a bit testy for the first time since taking over. "If we needed to, we would have (put Tebow in). We did not feel like Kyle was in a position that we needed to do that."

In the past two games, the Broncos went more than seven quarters without scoring a touchdown, and Orton has completed only 28-of-69 passes for 283 yards and no touchdowns, with three interceptions on Sunday.

At one point Sunday, he slipped beneath the Mendoza line in passer rating at 1.86 (and ended up at 27.1). Honestly, Orton looks like his throwing arm hurts. He is missing open receivers by yards.

What game was Studesville watching?

The Broncos need to do that — go to Tebow.

Why not? Maybe because McDaniels never switched to Tebow in the earlier blowouts. Maybe Studesville was doing Tebow a favor by not throwing him to the birds.

Or maybe he has been ordered by those above him (Bowlen and Ellis) not to play Tebow. "He wouldn't make this decision on his own," asserted someone closely associated with the Broncos.

Tebow surely won't start at Oakland.

In the Black Hole, that would be waterboarding kind of torture.

Possibly at home against the Texans, or the Chargers. Probably not at all now.

As a Broncos fan asked NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in London, "Why don't you have a mercy rule?"

Have mercy on the Broncos, commish. Cancel the remainder of the season.

Meanwhile, a discouraged Tebow just keeps on running toward uncertainty.

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